by Zoe Chant
He went limp in her grasp, staggering as the other fighter caught sight of Heather and moved to attack her.
Heather pulled another of the strands and tried to wrap it around the angry man.
He fell back as the darkness seemed to weaken and dissipate and Heather, weeping, moved to roll him off the struggling unicorn.
Rez looked unharmed, if more indignant than Vesta after a bath, and he staggered to his golden hooves as something shattered beside him.
Heather turned and saw a vendor she knew, Teresa, lifting one of her pottery jars into the air. She had that same crazed darkness like an overlay, and she was glaring at Heather intensely.
Heather blinked and squinted as the lines of light seemed to swim in her vision. They were all tangled together, and if she just pulled here...
Feeling supremely foolish, Heather reached to where one of the strands ran right next to her and gave it a tug. A knot of the stuff was pulled right through Teresa, who put down the pot she was hefting as if she wasn’t sure why she was holding it in the first place.
The dour-touched people milled about uncertainly, touching their wounds and their own mouths like they were drugged or in a state of half-sleep. Someone in the crowd clapped hesitantly and was joined by a half-hearted attempt from someone else. Even they knew that this was not the standard entertainment fare, and Rez himself was starting to attract attention.
“Italian Greyhound in a costume,” Heather said, hastily improvising. She scooped Rez up into her arms and dropped him into her purse, dropping a curtsy as if they had just finished a performance. The scattered applause intensified briefly, and the audience dispersed.
Chapter 17
Rez found himself trapped in an assortment of strange items with a skein of yarn, half-suffocated in Heather’s jostling purse, and it was a painful and humiliating reminder of being crushed beneath the human combatants.
He had never felt such helplessness, or been so sure of his own death.
“Are you alright?” Heather asked, once they were safe in the back of her tent once again. She gently untangled Rez from the yarn and put him down on the grass-cover ground, sagging to sit beside him.
Rez shifted back into his human form. “I don’t understand,” he confessed. “You saved me. How?”
Sounding half-hysterical, Heather explained, “I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense. I saw that you were being hurt, and all I could think was that I had to help you, and suddenly, it was like there were all these glowing lines of light everywhere, all tangled together, running through people, and around them, and all through the ground.
“And I didn’t really think, I just...pulled on one of them and it made the darkness over one of those men fade away, so I tried it with the other one, and it worked. And Teresa, she was further away, but the cords were all connected, and I thought if I could yank on one, it might pull the light through her.” Her voice was very small and lost. “And I guess it did?”
Rez knelt at her feet and laid his head on her knee. “Lady, you really are a powerful sorceress.”
“I’m not,” Heather protested with a sob. “I don’t know what I did, how it worked.”
“But you succeeded,” Rez pointed out. “You succeeded when I could not.” He was bitterly ashamed by his own uselessness, terrified by his own weakness and inability. He was smaller than a dog, entirely ineffective.
Vesta, drawn by Heather’s distress, crawled into her lap and butted her head into Heather’s chest, wriggling and crooning. Rez wondered bleakly if he would be able to comfort Heather in the same manner, and he considered sourly that it might be the only kind of help he could effect in his current state.
Heather clutched Vesta close to her chest and sobbed into the tiny greyhound. Rez wanted to gather them both into his arms, but he was not certain how welcome it would be and he was not sure if he could face her rejection after his bitter humiliation.
After a moment, she gathered herself again and bravely lifted her chin. “Why are there dours here?”
“I don’t know,” Rez confessed, wishing he had any other answer for her. “Perhaps they were attracted by my release from the ornament.”
“How did they get into my world?” Heather demanded. “Can we stop them?”
“I wish I knew,” Rez said between gritted teeth. He was failing, as he had failed his world, as he had fallen in this calling, and he bowed his head in defeat.
He was lost, and alone, he was in a strange world he didn’t understand, and the helpless woman he’d tried to protect had rescued him instead.
“You saved Allen, you know,” Heather pointed out, reaching out to give his face a gentle caress. “If I hadn’t seen you do it, I don’t think I would have known what to do.”
“My power flows so strangely here,” Rez lamented. It sounded like an excuse. A knight of the fallen kingdom did not make excuses.
“We’ll figure it out,” Heather promised. “Together. We make a good team.”
Rez lifted his gaze to hers and found all the comfort that he didn’t deserve. “I will protect your world,” he swore. “Whatever it takes, I will save it.”
“We’ll save it,” Heather corrected him.
Rez could not resist his instincts, and he leaned in close. “We’ll save it,” he agreed, and then he kissed her.
Chapter 18
Rez’s kiss was as gentle as a flutter of moth wings, and it left Heather hungry for more when he paused. It was a chance for her to protest, she thought, but that was the last thing she wanted. Forgetting about Vesta in her lap, she slid her arms up around his strong neck and broad shoulders, and pressed demandingly back.
He clasped her close, and Vesta gave a yelp of protest, which sent them scrambling apart just as Beth, the owner of the booth, came through the back flap. “What on earth is going on?” she demanded. “Why don’t we have a spinning demonstration going? Why are they saying that one of the blacksmiths went berserk? Did Teresa really throw a bunch of pottery? Are you all drunk?”
“Beth,” Heather squeaked. “I’m sorry, it’s been a little nuts, who knows what they put in the water? I sold two drop spindles and a punchcard of workshop classes. Is anyone badly hurt?”
Beth stared at Rez, who managed to look devastatingly handsome and completely innocent. “I...uh...don’t think so. Some minor cuts and bruises, I heard. Who’s this?”
Rez stood, and bowed courteously over her hand. “I am Rez, unicorn knight, defender of the fallen fae kingdom, protector of the broken crown.”
Beth positively melted. “Oh, that’s good. Tell me you’re planning to put him on stage?”
“I’ve got a bunch of things to take care of today,” Heather quickly said. “Would it be okay if I left a few minutes early?”
Beth looked from one of them to the other several times, and Heather was glad that the heat in her cheeks wouldn’t show. After a moment, Beth sighed. “Yeah, go on.”
Heather gathered Vesta into her arms and got to her feet before Beth could change her mind. “Let’s go, Rez.”
They walked for the entrance, and Heather was hyper-aware of every disagreement and complaint that they heard, occasionally even stopping to investigate. But none of the disturbances had the same tenor as their previous encounters, and then they were climbing onto a bus back to Fairburn.
The strands of light had faded away into nothing.
The apartment was sweltering again, and Heather had a moment of frustration before she remembered that she’d turned the air conditioner off, not trusting her wiring skills enough to leave it running while she was out and risk a fire. She released Vesta from her arms and went to turn it back on.
She was relieved when it grumbled back to life when she plugged it in, and she turned to find Rez standing very close behind her.
Heather had every intention of having a very serious discussion about what she’d seen and done, and what it meant that dours were here in her world, but Rez was kneeling at her feet again, in his devastating
way.
“I could not protect you,” he lamented.
“We’re not back to that, are we?” Heather tried to keep her tone light and warm.
He cupped her face in his strong hands, his touch sending little shivers of electricity down her body. “It is more than failure,” he said hesitantly. “I...care for you. That you were in danger and I could not help you...it...scares me.”
“I was pretty scared when I saw you go down under those two brutes,” Heather confessed, feeling short of breath and like an overwound spring. He was standing very close, and was so very large and handsome.
But it wasn’t just that he was built and beautiful...she felt like they had a connection, like she’d been called to him since before he was even a man again. She didn’t believe in love at first sight, she scolded herself...but then, she hadn’t believed in the fae or in unicorns, either, just two days before.
“There is magic at work,” Rez said.
“I haven’t enspelled you,” Heather protested weakly.
“I believe you,” Rez said, and he bent to kiss her again at last. She slipped her arms up around his neck and melted into him, opening her mouth beneath his.
He kissed her like a force of nature, like magic itself, and Heather thought for a moment that she could see the strands of light she’d seen at the Ren Faire through her closed eyelids.
The blast of cold air against her back, his warmth against her chest, and the heat rising in her loins gave her a strange feeling of being several entirely different people at once. And all of them wanted Rez.
His arms were where she belonged, she could not be close enough, she wanted him in her, she wanted them together, the way that they belonged together.
“Heather of Apartment 35…” he begged. “May I? May I?”
Heather was already fighting the toggles on her kirtle. “You may,” she said desperately. “Please do! Yes! Now...”
Then he leaned down, pulled all of her clothing up over her head and cast it aside, leaving her in undergarments only. Just as easily, he bent and picked her up, kissing her as he cradled her close and carried her back to the bedroom. He kicked the door closed behind him and Vesta gave a little yelp of dismay to be left out.
He laid her down on the bed, kissing and touching and caressing her until Heather was writhing and begging and tugging at him. “Rez, please…”
Rez pulled his shirt off over his head, and Heather hungrily ran her hands over the planes of his chest and then further down into the elastic waistband of his underwear. She cupped as much of his cock as she could, and he gave a groan of need and slipped the rest of his clothing off.
For a moment, they paused, drinking each other in. He was as hot as she remembered, and his cock was thick and rigid and Heather could not keep herself from staring at it in awe.
Then Rez was on her at last, his weight driving her wild with desire. Only the thin, damp fabric of her underpants separated them. She wasn’t sure if it was sweat from their hot walk from the subway or the fluid of her need for him, and it didn’t matter. They were both earthy and elemental in their hunger, utterly desperate for each other.
She managed to lift her hips just enough that he could wriggle the panties off of her, and then, at last—at last!—he was driving in, filling her, closer and closer and harder and faster until she was crying out in exquisite release. Rez slowed, but did not stop, drawing her up another crest of pleasure, bit by agonizing bit until he gave a great, guttural noise of surrender and she was coming again, helplessly, as he did.
They lay together a long while after, stroking each other in wonder. When Heather closed her eyes, she felt like she could see the strands of light everywhere, like tangled skeins of yarn, drifting around them.
When she eventually fell asleep in his arms, she dreamed of them, and somehow in her dream, she was knitting with them.
Chapter 19
They didn’t nap long, but waking with Heather in his embrace was a kind of bliss that Rez had never in his wildest dreams expected to enjoy. She was soft, limp with sleep, and her curly, short-cropped hair smelled like lavender.
It was all very hard to believe, he thought, stroking the side of her face. An entirely new world, full of weird and wonderful technology. A world that hadn’t been touched by darkness or dours...until he’d come. Rez frowned up at the globe on the ceiling that lit by electricity from a switch near the door.
Had the dours somehow come through with him? Were they attracted by Heather breaking his spell? He winced to think that he might inadvertently put her in danger, or repay her generosity by putting her at risk.
The object of his thoughts stirred and murmured, and Rez laid a kiss on her neck that made her smile and squirm.
“What time is it?” she asked, and she rolled to look at the box with glowing numbers by the bed. “I don’t usually nap, but wow, I needed that.”
“If you aren’t used to magic, it may be somewhat exhausting,” Rez cautioned.
“To say nothing of our other exertion,” Heather teased. They kissed, slow and full of promise, but Heather drew away with a sigh. “I want to do some Internet searches and check The Ornament Shoppe database, and if I wait too much longer, our New York dealer will be closed for the day and we’d have to wait for Monday. Let’s order take-out and we’ll start looking for your shieldmates.”
They dressed reluctantly, pausing more than once to kiss and nearly falling back into the bed together.
Only Rez’s desire to find his shieldmates kept him from dallying more.
Vesta had not taken her exclusion from the bedroom well; one of Rez’s new shoes had tiny fresh chew-marks in the leather. “Oh, Vesta,” Heather scolded.
Vesta did not look contrite, and she growled and stalked around with her tail down until she won treats and scratches from Rez, who could not resist her tiny wiles.
Heather opened a thin, metallic book that had only one ever-changing page, set it sideways, and began typing on the letters on one side. Rez watched, fascinated, as pictures and words scrolled past. He could read the words, but could make no sense of them, and she worked so swiftly and efficiently that Rez could only shake his head in wonder.
“Glass dragon in a ring. That’s getting me nowhere. The keyword ring is just giving me rings. Griffon glass ornament. Let’s try spelling it gryphon-with-a-y. What did you say the other one was?”
“A firebird,” Rez said, reaching out to touch the glowing screen.
“Let’s try phoenix. There can’t be that many phoenix Christmas ornaments.”
They cycled through many different keywords, some of them over and over, on pages that Heather selected, named eBay, and Craigslist, and Facebook.
“Wait, there!”
There was a photograph of a green glass dragon framed in a glass ring, just like Rez’s unicorn had been. The description of the item would have been cryptic to anyone else: “Looking for matching glass ornaments to complete a one-of-a-kind set, including gryphon, unicorn, and firebird. Makers marks: Rez, Hendrick, and Tadra. Will pay any reasonable price.”
“Bingo,” Heather said. Perhaps it was a plea or an expression of gratitude to a deity?
“It does not list Trey or Robin,” Rez said, and he didn’t realize that he was squeezing Heather’s shoulders until she patted his hand in reminder. “My apologies.”
“There’s a number,” Heather said. “Let’s call.”
Her phone, apparently, worked communication magic as well, and she tapped in the code from the webpage and then paused, while Rez paced nervously.
“Is it—”
Listening intensely to her phone, Heather held up her hand to stop him.
Finally, she said brightly, “Hi, my name is Heather Jamison, I’m calling about the ornaments you were looking for. I have found...ah...the unicorn, and I’m hoping you can help my...friend Rez. Here’s my number.”
She rattled off numbers, then pulled the phone from her ear and punched a button.
“I ha
d to leave a message,” she said. “Hopefully this Daniella person will call us back in short order.”
Rez thought he might explode in anticipation, and Heather drew him down beside her on the couch. Vesta jealously tried to burrow between them.
“Rez,” she said hesitantly. “Whatever happens, I know you want to get back to your own world and your own...er...shieldmates. I wouldn’t ask you not to do that. I just...you shouldn’t think that I would make you…”
“You don’t want me to stay?” Rez asked, trying to make sense of what she was saying.
“I do,” Heather said breathlessly. “I just don’t want you to feel obligated. You’re clearly part of something bigger, and I don’t know what kind of significance you put on...er...what we did.”
Rez thought he understood what she was saying, and wondered how much of what he was feeling was telegraphed on his face. He was deeply conflicted, because his first duty was to his world and his shieldmates...but he knew that even they could not diminish what he felt for this brave, curious woman and her strange, good world. He felt weirdly as if he belonged here, and as much as he longed for his shieldmates, he was not sure if he could leave Heather for them.
“Heather,” he started, then he stopped, because her phone was buzzing demandingly.
Chapter 20
“Whoa,” Heather said, looking at the screen. “Video call, okay.” She thumbed a green circle and there were a few moments of black screen while Rez tried to school himself into patience.
A brunette came into view with a moment of noise like the air conditioner. “Oh, hi! I’m Daniella. Sorry to call like this. Robin thought they might be able to...um...let’s start back a little further. You found a unicorn ornament?”
